The second installment of the BBL overseas draft is set to place on September 3 alongside the inaugural WBBL overseas draft. Both drafts will follow very similar rules to last year. Here is everything you need to know.
What is the overseas draft and where will it be held?
Will the overseas draft be televised?
Both drafts will be televised on Foxtel and streamed on Kayo. The draft will take place at NEP studios in South Melbourne where it was held last year. The WBBL draft is likely to take place in the afternoon followed by the BBL draft in the evening.
How do overseas players nominate?
What is the money involved?
If they are only available for 10 matches, they will earn AUD$400,000. If they can only play nine matches the price will be AUD$380,000. Anyone only available for eight matches or less in the Platinum category will earn AUD$360,000 regardless of whether they play one game or eight. Gold players will earn AUD$300,000, Silver AUD$200,000, and Bronze AUD$100,000 with no minimum matches required for those players. There are no match payments in the BBL, as players are contracted with set retainers. All overseas salaries are to be paid by the clubs from within the salary cap.
The categories only relate to price, not to availability. So players can nominate to be available for the whole tournament in the Bronze category, or for half the tournament in the Gold category. Their availability is their currency and teams will have to decide whether a Platinum player with limited availability is worth selecting.
In the WBBL, Platinum players will earn AUD$110,000 to be paid by the clubs from the AUD$732,000 salary cap. Gold players will earn AUD$90,000, Silver AUD$65,000 and Bronze will earn AUD$40,000.
What is the draft order and how was it decided?
CA held a private weighted lottery to decide the order in both the BBL and WBBL, as they did last year. This year’s BBL draft order is as follows: pick 1 – Melbourne Stars, pick 2 – Adelaide Strikers, pick 3 – Hobart Hurricanes, pick 4 – Melbourne Renegades, pick 5 – Sydney Thunder, pick 6 – Sydney Sixers, pick 7 – Brisbane Heat, pick 8 – Perth Scorchers.
The three teams who missed the BBL finals last season – Stars, Strikers and Hurricanes – entered a lottery for the first three draft picks. Stars, who finished last, got three chances to get the first draft pick, Strikers two and Hurricanes one. Here’s another way to think of it: there are six balls in the first lottery and three of them are Stars’ giving them a 50% chance of first pick, whereas Hurricanes, with one ball, only have 16.66% chance.
The order of the next five picks were selected from a second pot featuring the finalists from last season. Again, the lottery was weighted. Fifth-placed Thunder got five chances to get the fourth pick, Renegades four, Sixers three, Heat two, and two-time defending champions Scorchers got one.
The WBBL draft order was decided via the same method except there were two pots of four due to a different finals system. This year’s WBBL draft order is as follows: pick 1 – Sydney Thunder, pick 2 – Melbourne Renegades, pick 3 – Perth Scorchers, pick 4 – Melbourne Stars, pick 5 – Hobart Hurricanes, pick 6 – Brisbane Heat, pick 7 – Sydney Sixers, pick 8 – Adelaide Strikers.
In both drafts, the first two rounds of the draft will run in order from one to eight. Round three will run in reverse order, so team eight will get two selections in a row (pick 16 and 17). Round four will run in normal order again. So team one will get two selections in a row (picks 24 and 25).
How does the draft work?
There will be four rounds of the draft with each team getting one pick per round. Clubs can pass if they don’t want to pick in certain rounds but must pick a minimum of two or a maximum of three players by the completion of round four. Round one is for Platinum players only. In round two, teams can pick Platinum or Gold players. In round three, teams can select Gold or Silver players. In round four, teams can pick Silver or Bronze players. Teams do not have to select a Platinum player but they must then select a Gold player. Teams can select two Platinum players, but only one in each round. If they choose two Platinum players, they cannot select a Gold player, they can only select a Silver or Bronze. The same rule applies if a team chooses two Gold players in rounds two and three. They can only then select a Bronze player in round four.
Can overseas players who are currently connected with BBL clubs be retained?
Are there swapping of picks?
There is pick trading this season for the first time. There was no swapping of picks in last year’s draft but CA have added pick trading to the two drafts this year but it comes in a limited capacity. Teams can only trade picks within each round. So a team with pick 8 who doesn’t want a Platinum player cannot trade pick 8 for pick 9 to ensure both clubs got two picks in the same round. Trades of picks will need to be completed by August 20, the same day the nominations close, and all trades need to be approved by CA’s technical committee.
What about replacement players?
Alex Malcolm is an Associate Editor at ESPNcricinfo
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